


Wait For You

by sapphicleksa



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, F/F, Female Character In Command, Female Character of Color, Grounder Culture, Hurt Lexa, LGBTQ Female Character, POV Costia, POV Female Character, POV Lexa, Protective Lexa, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 13:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4307439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicleksa/pseuds/sapphicleksa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Costia is taken, how she defies the Ice Queen, and maybe, just maybe, how Lexa moves on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“You’re holding council with the elders of the clan, right?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“How long?”_

_Lexa winces. “Too long, if I had to guess.”_

_A smile, then a laugh, from Costia. “They do love to argue, don’t they? Those old farts always seem to think they know better than me, nevermind that I’m this close to being a full healer, and I’m definitely not some kid who just picked up her first mortar and pestle.” An undercurrent of irritation, buried deep in her joking._

_“You seem tense.” Frank and open, like always, driving home to the heart of things._

_She sighs, casting her eyes to the tree-covered sky. “More like anxious. Trapped, maybe? I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I’m so close to finishing my training, I mean, I basically have, I just...”_

_“You’re scared you’ll still mess up somehow,” Lexa finishes, a spark of something like playfulness in her eyes._

_Costia pauses for a moment before it hits her, and then she’s all rolled eyes and wry smiles. “Of course. Commander.”_

_“I know full well what you’re feeling.”_

_“I know.”_

_“It helps to get away.”_

_“Hm?”_

_“That’s why I have you. The one part of my life that isn’t all negotiations and war plans and logistics. You’re my escape.”_

_“I know that.” Hands brush against each other, the contact electric, begging for more. Costia pulls back and sighs once again, but more wistfully, looking into the eyes of her love. “You have your council. I’ll...I’ll take my sketchbook to the woods.” The corners of her mouth curl up. “To our waterfall. Our escape.”_

_Lexa brings those long, dark, artist’s fingers to her lips, a gentle kiss. “Wait for me when you get back? I’ll need some escape time of my own after this.”_

_“Wait for you?” She throws back her head and laughs, black eyes flashing. “Always, Lexa. Always.”_

That was midmorning. It’s just after sunset now, the twilight seeping in through the cloth covering the window of the Commander’s home. She can no longer deny the suspicion that crept into her mind hours ago: twilight creeping from daylight to dusk is their most treasured time together. Costia never fails to miss this bleeding of color, not unless the bleeding of warriors draws her away.

There has been no fighting today.

Lexa raises her head, hardens her mouth and eyes. This is the face she shows her people. This is the face she lets slip away when only Costia is in the room.

_Costia._

_I’m overreacting_ , she tells herself, as she stands before the door. _Someone in the village has taken ill. She stayed out longer than she meant and is on her way home, even now._

Somehow this doesn’t make her feel better, but nonetheless, she strides out, needing no armor nor war paint to make those posted outside stand at rapt attention. “Gustus. Has Costia returned to the village?”

“No, Heda.” He speaks firmly, but his jaw clenches; worry. Lexa is both relieved and devastated: so she is not a fool for her concern, but her fear may be real.

She nods. “Send two warriors on her trail. She and Aurelia should have returned by now.” _Aurelia is one of our most skilled fighters_ , she reasons. _Costia is safe with her._

Gustus waves his hand and barks out orders. A bowman and a swordswoman move into the forest, as seamless as the shift of colors overhead, and then they’re gone, swallowed up by the forest. _No._ She will not think of such things, not the trees growing tight together, not the darkness falling upon them all, not the way someone can disappear within bark and branch. She will not think of such things.

“She will be fine.” Gustus speaks with quiet strength. He knows what Costia means to her; the whole clan knows, but the whole clan doesn’t stand by her side night and day with sword at the ready.

“I know.” Her heart clenches. Those are Costia’s favorite pair of words, though when she says them, they become almost a taunt, just barely edged with cheek. _I know._ Why would you even say such a thing, her response seems to ask. Lexa’s version is more sedate. She can’t do this anymore. “Tell me if anything changes.” He nods, she turns and goes back inside.

Hands white-knuckle on the back of a chair as she bows her head and tries to calm down. This is the first time Costia’s gone truly missing since Lexa can remember; Lexa was always the one sweeping in at the last minute when they were younger. Costia is still early to every meeting, lesson, informal gathering. But there’s a first time for everything, right? Tired cliches don’t make her grip any looser. She can’t let go until she knows something, anything. That they lost track of time (though Costia anticipates the movement of the sun in the sky and works ahead of it). That they got pinned down by acid fog (though the waterfall isn’t that far away, and they haven’t heard the horn in tonDC). That Costia fell and injured herself (though Aurelia could carry her home, and has a horn to blow if she needs help).

For the first time in many years, Lexa does not appreciate the twilight. She does not sit out in the clearing and gaze at the sky, nor does she revel in the darkness washing over her and the secrecy it provides. Each fading stream of light is another stream of hope gone; the night is no friend to trackers, nor lost souls. It becomes more and more difficult for her to keep clinging to the belief that Costia is anything but in trouble.

She hears boots, talking, a burst of yelling.

“What is going on?” the Commander doesn’t need to yell, her voice sharp and cool; her presence outside is enough. She takes in the tight mouth of Gustus and the wary eyes of the two scouts, finally returned, but alone, they’re _alone_ , they have something with them. Others have gathered, slowly exiting their homes to see what the disturbance is. They shouldn’t see this. Just in case. In case of what, she wouldn’t go there. _Wouldn’t_ go there. “Inside. Now.”

The three of them follow her into her home, where they remain standing as she does. Her eyes are fixed on the bundle in the bowman’s arms. “Justin. Show me.”

He sets it on the table, unwrapping the cloth with leather-gloved hands. A leather-bound book. A leather-wrapped braid.

She remains placid. This Commander’s calm is not new to her; it’s a practiced art. Only this time, it’s more personal than it’s ever been. The book first: the sure thing. She knows it’s Costia’s even before she opens it and skims the art within, knows every crack and stain on the cover. Still she leafs through.

The last image is a half-done painting, dyes that took Costia countless hours to create and are now nowhere to be seen, blues and purples streaming down over rocks, their rocks, their waterfall, marred by a slash of gray, surprised, across and off the page.

Lexa sets the book aside, closed.

The braid she clenches in her palm. It is bright red, almost violently so: Aurelia.

“Where were these found?” Now her words come low, burning. This is the anger they expect, the anger she lets flood over the despair threatening to overtake her.

Justin responds; the swordswoman Daria is too trembling, with rage or anguish, Lexa can’t tell, to speak. Aurelia was her second. “On a rock, in the open by the waterfall. They were not hidden.”

She closes her eyes and exhales. The braid comes to her lips. A whisper. _“Yu gonplei ste odon.”_

It is passed to her mentor, who clutches it with all her strength and murmurs the same parting words. She tucks it in her belt and looks up with war in her face. “Heda, it would be my honor to destroy them who did this. This was an act of cowardice, treachery—”

The Commander raises her hand. Daria is silent. “There was no sign of either of them?”

Justin swallows. “We found Aurelia’s body.”

“Surely you did not—”

“We did not bring it all the way back, Heda.” He ducks his head respectfully; it is rare to interrupt a Commander. “It is half a mile outside of the village. We did not want to start a riot, but we did not want the wolves to take her before the flame she deserves.”

“Your judgement was correct,” Lexa nods. “Aurelia will have the fire she has earned, and her spirit will be carried onwards.” She pauses. “As for Costia...?”

They both shake their heads. “Nothing but the book,” Daria says. “The darkness came upon us too quickly to look further, Heda, but...there was no body.”

“I will gather the best night trackers, and set them on Costia’s trail.” Gustus, speaking for the first time since coming inside. “They will find her.”

“Do it,” says Lexa, decisively. “Then bring me Indra, and tell the people that I have news for them, and those that wish to hear it may gather by the bonfire.” It isn’t late enough for the village to be asleep, and they will want to hear what she has to say. This is worse than an act of outright war: this is an act of deceit. Her people do not take well to foxes.

They follow her orders and leave, and she has a moment to herself. She does not cry. She does not scream. She does not kick the table and throw chairs. She allows herself only to sink down to her knees and dig her fingers into the packed dirt floor.

_Costia._

Her light, her rock, the girl she grew up with and will fight for with her last breath.

Lexa will not mourn her yet.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Wait for you? Always, Lexa. Always.”_

Those words run through Costia’s mind over and over, a whirlpool that keeps circling in on itself. Were those her last words to her love? _Not bad at all,_ she thinks, _for last words._ She is bordering on grimness.

Lexa will be worried about her.

That’s what causes her heart to squeeze. Not the fact that she’s just woken up and she can feel the rope binding her hands and feet but she can’t see them because of the cloth over her eyes; the mere thought of Lexa worried is enough to make her nerves pull taut. She doesn’t know why she’s here, or where here even is, but she has her guesses.

It’s too bad that all of this will be for naught; she knows nothing that her captors couldn’t have discovered without dragging her away from her waterfall.

Did they find her book there? The last image was ruined by surprise, a streak across the page, but it holds more paintings, sunsets and blooming flowers, sketches of herbs, wounds, Lexa’s face when she’s sleeping.

Did Lexa get any sleep last night? (Is it even morning yet?) Lexa never sleeps when she’s anxious, or angry, or working through a plan so more often than not she sits awake by the light of a candle, and it takes coaxing and coddling for Costia to convince her to return to bed. Even then she lies awake, but Costia has healer’s hands, artist’s fingers, and she is gentle. She knows how to relax away the hard lines of her Heda’s body.

 _Of course Lexa won’t have slept,_ she thinks, and a snort comes out. Her love doesn’t know how to take care of herself; that’s Costia’s job. She won’t listen to anyone else.

Maybe her mother can do it; Indra has never been one to take for an answer. Or Gustus; Lexa trusts Gustus, as much as she trusts anyone who isn’t Costia. _Someone will have to if I’m not_...she doesn’t follow where the wind blows that thought.

She hears footsteps. The gag in her mouth isn’t needed; she is silent as strangers move around her. She knows what they want. She knows they will remove it on their own.

The blindfold comes off. Dim light, but enough for her to blink after so long in darkness. Eyes dart around, assess the surroundings: small room, wood and dirt and stone; musty smell, earth and decay, underground; arms tied above, legs below, a pole, a stake, maybe, against her back; a woman in a chair in front of her, faintly familiar, but bathed in shadow and obscured by Costia’s still-adjusting vision. She squints, dark brows furrowed, and...she knows that face.

Hands remove the gag, and Arcadia the Ice Queen lifts her head, a thin smile on her face. Costia wants to vomit just looking at her smugness.

“We can make this easy or hard. It is your choice.”

Costia laughs, her voice dry and cracked from disuse and lack of water. “Here’s easy: you set me free, and I convince the Commander to let you live.” She knows that will not happen; why would Arcadia show her face, if Costia might be released? If there were any chance of her returning, the Queen would have stayed far out of her sight. Yet here they both are.

“You will never see your beloved Commander again.” Her words are sharp, painful, but Costia can’t help but notice how trite they are. “Beloved Commander?” _Is there no creativity left in the world?_

She wishes she had her charcoal. Arcadia is all angles and sharp lines, a haughty lift of her chin, skin the color of parchment and hair of pitch pulled tightly back from her face. Her portrait would be stark and precise, disdainful.

The image in her mind is disrupted when the Ice Queen stands. “Your clan has been no friend to ours.”

“What of it?” Costia scoffs. “Children know it; you can expect I do too.” The Tree Clan and the Ice Nation have been at odds since before Costia was born, and long, long before Lexa ever took up the mantle of Commander.

“That ends today.”

“Kidnapping the Heda’s lover isn’t a good way to start peace talks.”

Arcadia tilts her head, amused and intrigued. “We heard you were tender-hearted.”

A laugh, more tired now. She wants to get this over with, but she won’t go quietly; she won’t give Arcadia that pleasure. “Clearly you heard wrong.”

“You were soft enough, those times we met.”

“Can you imagine Lexa loving me if that was all I was?”

“No, I don’t suppose so,” she answers slowly. She considers Costia now, taking her measure, weighing her up. “This will not be quick, will it.” There’s a hint of excitement, sadistic bastard, but these words fall with a heavy finality. Costia can’t help but agree.

She closes her eyes and thinks of Lexa, younger, happier, not-Heda Lexa. The Lexa she ran through the woods with, and rolled in wildflowers, and splashed in the stream of their waterfall. The Lexa whose shoulder she popped back into place, twice, whose hair she wove and braided, whose face she painted, whose lips and feet and everything in between she’s explored countless times over, with hands and mouth alike. _Her_ Lexa. The girl she’s loved since she discovered what love was.

“No. It will not be quick.”


	3. Chapter 3

Lexa sits in the glow cast by a single candle. Her knife rests in her lap.

It wasn’t always her knife. Once, it belonged to a girl with midnight hair and stars in her eyes, a smile like the moon. She feels like she saw this girl again, for the first time in a long time, but in a different girl, a girl like the sun.

_Clarke._

Vibrant, brave, fierce. And gentle. And clever. Everything Costia was, but twisted, golden instead of silver. A hazy shadow of a memory, brought to life.

She sets the tip of the knife on the ground and spins it.

 _You closed off your heart for a reason,_ she reminds herself. But she can’t deny what her heart’s saying now. How it quickens at the thought of the Sky Girl. Clarke is so familiar it hurts.

Lexa stops the knife with the tip of her finger resting on the top. It balances, precarious.

 _Love is weakness,_ she’s told herself, over and over. But was she ever stronger than when she was with Costia?

Was she ever more determined, more relentless? Didn’t having someone to come home to make her fight that much harder to come home?

Didn’t she stand taller with someone beside her, someone supporting her?

She closes her eyes and lets the knife fall.


End file.
